“Or at least put it in some kind of perspective.”
She almost choked on her sip of wine. Perspective. Now there was something she’d apparently long since lost a grip on where he was concerned.
“But you didn’t tell me your last name.” He reached over then, traced one of those long fingers along her wrist and over the back of her hand. And suddenly she was very, very glad she’d kept the condoms. “I felt sort of like the prince after the ball, with only your first name as my glass slipper.”
She put the wine down. No more wine. It sloshed a little in the glass as she fought to clear her throat.
For just a split second, years of wallflower paranoia swam to the surface and she wondered if this was all another setup designed to humiliate her. That at some point everyone from his old crowd was going to magically appear and they’d all point their fingers at her and have a good laugh. But no, even she wasn’t that paranoid.
“It’s Harper.” She bit the corner of her bottom lip, heedless of the carefully applied lip liner she was probably chewing off.
Jason’s perfect smile and gorgeous face squinched up a little as he tried to recollect the girl she’d been.
Lucy thought he even looked sexy when he squinched.
“Did we have any classes together?” he asked.
Fifteen in four years. “A few.” Not to mention the student council and the yearbook staff. She waved her hand lightly. “I wasn’t one of the popular gang back then.” Or ever. “And, like I said at the reunion, I’ve changed a little.” Completely. Except on the inside.
Jason’s expression smoothed as he smiled again. “It was a big school, so I guess none of us knew everyone.”
“Some of us fewer than others,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She was saved by the foie gras. Which, as it turned out, was not going to make her top-ten list of things to order on first dates. Or any dates, ever again.
Lucy forced herself to swallow another bite of pasty duck liver without choking. “So,” she said, gagging just a little as the gelatinous glob went down. She recovered by dabbing her mouth with her napkin. Once the duck had slid home, she worked up a smile.
“Very nicely done,” Jason was saying as he savored the taste. “I’ll have to recommend this place to my partners.”
“You’re a partner in your firm, then? That’s wonderful at such a young age.”
Jason beamed. “Thank you. I admit, I’m proud of the achievement. But I worked my tail off. Still do.” He chuckled. “Well, enough about me. You probably got bored to tears at the reunion with all the talk of my background.”
She could have told him she knew every detail about his background without having listened in to even one reunion-night group-replay discussion. But she was still dealing with the aftermath of her total forgettableness being so blithely confirmed. Not that she’d been surprised. Mentioning she’d spent all four years in high school pining after him like a lovesick puppy was probably frowned on in the first-date handbook.
“What got you into teaching?”
“Both of my parents are teachers. My father is an English professor at Georgetown and my mom also teaches English, but at American.” Which made her whole family sound about as exciting as watching mud dry.
Jason’s eyes still lit with what she could only assume was feigned interest. “Quite a heritage. Did you feel pressured to follow in their footsteps?”
“No, not at all. There was simply nothing else I was particularly good at.”
He paused for a moment, not sure she was joking.
She tried to make a sound as if she were amused by her own self-deprecation, but it came out sounding a bit like a snort. “We can’t all be jocks, right?” When he looked confused, she quickly changed the subject. “Do lawyers run in your family?”
He stared at her a second longer, but the team-captain smile quickly resurfaced as he shook his head. “I have two uncles that coach college ball, one at Washington State, one for Indiana. My dad was a collegiate all-star in baseball who made it to the minors before his pitching arm gave out. He runs a personal-training business for executives.” Again with the self-deprecating smile. “We’re more brawn than brains in the Prescott family tree, I’m afraid.”
Lucy smiled. “Well, lucky you, you got both.” Okay, that might have sounded a bit more snarky than she’d intended. He was treating her nicely and being perfectly decent. So where was all this attitude coming from? So what if he didn’t remember her? Given how things had gone in high school—or hadn’t—that was a good thing. Right? Fresh start and all that.
“I wasn’t the first Prescott through college, but I was the first through law school.”
“I bet your family is very proud of you.”
He nodded, chuckled. “Yeah. They only occasionally harass me about not making it into the pros now.”
“Did they really give you a hard time? You were sidelined due to an injury, right? Because you were being scouted before then. At—at least, that’s what I overheard. At the reunion.” Right. Good save, Luce. Because we wouldn’t want him to think you’re a stalker or anything.
“Well, I won’t say they weren’t disappointed. Devastated, actually. More than I was, I think.” He was still smiling, only his eyes weren’t quite as twinkly. “Usually it’s the parents that force a kid to have a backup career when sports are involved. In my case, I was the one convincing them that sports law wasn’t a bad second choice.”
He was making light, but Lucy saw beyond the surface. Could it be that Jason Prescott had difficulties, too? Just like mere mortals? Well, of course it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’d faced his share of challenges. Who hadn’t? She ducked her chin. Because if she’d been asked that question five minutes ago, she’d have easily pointed to her dinner partner. Now who was the shallow one?
Imagining him with normal problems, however, did little to settle her still-swarming butterflies. He looked pretty darn problem-free at the moment. And there was nothing normal about the rest of him, either. The phrase “god among men” came to mind.
“My dad dreamed of sitting courtside and watching me play in the NBA. It was hard for him to get over that dream.”
“I’d think he’d understand more than anyone, seeing as an injury sidelined his career in the pros, too.”
“You’d think. But it made it worse. He’d always pushed me, hard, in sports. And I knew he was sort of living his dream through me. He’d been hit hard enough with the reality that I wasn’t going to make it in baseball. I got my uncle’s height early and my heart was on the hardwood courts, not the baseball diamond. That was hard for him to swallow.”
Lucy sat there, trying to imagine her parents putting that kind of pressure on her. Sure, she knew they’d have been thrilled if she’d aimed a bit higher and sought to teach at the same academic level they did. But they’d never made her feel less than good enough for teaching in public school. And though they loved to brag to their friends that she’d followed in their footsteps, Lucy didn’t think they’d have given her any real difficulty if she’d chosen a completely different field.
The slight pause in their conversation expanded to the awkward stage and Lucy searched for the right thing to say to get them back on a more lighthearted track. “Well, I imagine as partner in your firm you can still get them courtside seats, right?” Sensitive to his needs, yet still witty.
Only he didn’t get quite the kick out of her comment as she’d hoped. He smiled in response, perfunctory this time, then looked relieved when their dinner showed up.
Well, she’d made it to the entrée before sticking her foot in her mouth. At least her stomach was still empty. She’d pushed around and rearranged her foie gras and parsley snippet until it hopefully looked like she’d eaten more than she had. She was never so grateful than when the waiter cleared that away. Until he put her next dish in front of her. She swallowed hard. It was that or gag. “Are those? . . .”
“Escargot. I hear they make this cream sauce here that is to die for. I really think you’ll love it.”
He seemed so enthusiastic.
And—oh, goody—the side dish was steamed asparagus. Her second-to-last favorite vegetable, falling right between brussels sprouts and cooked spinach. Maybe if she was really lucky, they’d have sushi for dessert. She’d accepted an invitation to dinner and somehow landed on Fear Factor: First Date.
She must not have hidden her reaction as well as she’d hoped, because Jason paused before attacking his first defenseless snail—so what if it was already dead, it just made the whole thing seem that much more tragic—and glanced over at her. “First time eating escargot?” Mercifully, he didn’t wait for the embarrassing—and quite obvious answer—reaching instead for the accompanying Tool of Torture. “Here, you just push the fork in the opening and—”
“I can’t even pick crabmeat out of the shell,” she suddenly blurted. “I’m not going to be able to do this.”
He looked momentarily stunned at her outburst.
Join the club, she thought morosely. It was like she was purposely sabotaging the whole evening. But honestly, there was no way she was digging that creature out of its shell, much less dunking it in some white sauce and chewing it up.
“I—I thought you weren’t a vegetarian. I’m sorry.”
She had to tear her gaze away from her plate. Just in case one of the shells moved. Or something. With her date karma, it could happen. She tried for a winsome smile. Hopefully her skin looked less green than it felt. “I’m not one of those ‘I can’t eat it if it had a face’ types. Really. I just kind of need the face to be gone before I eat it.” Her gaze was pulled back to her plate. “Otherwise I feel like I should name it and give it a home.”
She glanced back up at Jason, who thankfully wasn’t staring at her like she’d just sprouted two heads. But the engaging class-president-by-a-landslide smile was not in place, either. He mostly looked nonplussed.
“I’m really sorry. I should have paid closer attention when you were ordering.” Instead of staring at your stunning flawlessness and wondering what the chances were you’d ever use the condoms in my purse.
“No, no,” he said, snapping out of his momentary lapse in perfection. “Not a problem. It’s just, when we met, you struck me as, I don’t know, exotic somehow. You know, no name tag, killer dress, amazing jewelry hanging all over you. First-name-only basis. You were mysterious.”
“Really?” She couldn’t help it. She grinned. The fate of the snails momentarily forgotten as she basked in the glow of his surprising confession. She might have even preened. Just a tiny little hair flip, but it couldn’t be helped. No one had ever used the words “mysterious” or “exotic” in the same paragraph as “Lucy Harper” before. An autobiography’s worth of words about Lucy Harper would come and go and never come close to using either of them.
His smile broadened once again and he relaxed, the date once again on even footing. “I was trying to impress you with my worldliness.”
Jason Prescott. Worried about impressing Lucy Harper. Her life had officially come full circle. Her world now tilted in a whole new way.
He chuckled. “Of course, I didn’t know you were a schoolteacher then.”
And whump. Back on its regular axis.
“Well, I’m sure there are plenty of schoolteachers who eat escargot.” She pushed her plate back. “I guess I’m just not one of them. I’ll be glad to take care of my meal,” she told him. It wasn’t fair to make him pay for something she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—eat.
“No, no. I invited you, and it was my anxiousness that created the problem.” He glanced around for their waiter, and as was usually the case for the Golden People, he magically appeared, as if his only role in life was to serve Jason.
Lucy usually waited far too long in the hopes of subtly catching her server’s attention with a lifted hand or a nod. After a while, when she realized even a taxi whistle wouldn’t get their attention, she’d nicely ask a busboy to track her errant waiter down. And even then they never rushed out. Maybe that had changed slightly in her post–Glass Slipper experience, but with school in session, and okay, no dates on her social calendar, she hadn’t had much of a chance to test it out.
Jason quickly had her plate cleared away. “Would it bother you if I—” He motioned to his own pile of unlucky snails.
“No, no,” she assured him. Go right ahead and dig their poor little bodies out of their little shells. I’ll just be over here pretending I’m anywhere else on the planet. She felt guilty enough about wasting her food, she could hardly ask him to waste his, as well.
From memory, Jason asked the server to bring another dish from the menu. “Chicken marsala okay with you?” he asked her. “Is it free-range chicken?” he asked the waiter.
Which made her feel like the Difficult Date From Hell. She didn’t care where the chicken lived before they chopped its head off. She just didn’t want to be the one doing the chopping. Or the plucking. It really wasn’t all that complicated.
The waiter hurried off to find out the chicken’s complete personal history before she could tell him not to worry about it. Which left Jason sitting there politely letting his snails grow cold. Or warm. Whichever they weren’t originally. She really didn’t want to know.
“I’m really sorry,” she said again. “I truly wasn’t trying to be difficult.” She tried an engaging smile, game to the end. “Normally a burger or a plate of spaghetti and I’m happy as a clam.” She stopped short at the unintentional irony, then had to swallow an Inappropriate Snicker.
Jason didn’t seem to share that difficulty. In fact, he didn’t seem to notice the amusing analogy at all. So much for being witty and engaging.
“Not a problem,” he said easily.
“Please,” she said, feeling more out of place by the moment, “go ahead and eat. There’s no reason your dinner should be less than perfect.” Like me.
She’d wanted to normalize the evening? Well, she’d done that in spades. She supposed she should be careful what she wished for.
One more evening pretending to be Cinderella wouldn’t have killed her. And it might have gotten her laid. Sorry, Vivian.
Chapter 23
No good-night kiss. That’s not good.” Unless your name is Grady Matthews. Jana sipped her water and stared out at the people jogging by. Dave had been hovering all morning—hell, all week—smothering her. He felt like he’d let her down somehow, and of course he hadn’t. This was her problem, not his. Which made her feel guilty for hurting him and more like a freak about this whole thing than she already did. So when Lucy had called and begged her to come meet her somewhere, anywhere, to talk about the Big Date, she’d been more than happy to oblige.
It was a gorgeous October morning, so they sat on a bench on The Mall downtown, in the shadow of the Capitol, watching the weekend warriors play Frisbee, soccer, and volleyball. It felt good to have the sun on her face, even if the air was a bit brisk. Unfortunately, the guilt she’d hoped to leave at home had trailed her here.
“Yeah, I figured my Cinderella story was over.”
Jana shifted the sour ball to the side of her mouth. “Are you saying it’s not?” She swatted Lucy’s arm. “Why didn’t you just come out and say so?”
“Ow,” she said, rubbing the spot. “You have to let me savor some of this. Don’t lie and say you’re unhappy with the way the date turned out.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt.” That much was true.
“I was disappointed, not hurt.”
Jana smiled. “That part I was okay with.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Turning serious, Jana shifted around on the bench to face Lucy more directly. “It’s just that, to be perfectly honest, I feel like you could do better. I mean, look at you.”
Lucy looked down. “What? I’m Regular Old Lucy today.”
Jana shook her head. “You might be wearing the old Lucy’s jeans and s
weatshirt, but, well . . . you’re different now, Luce.”
Lucy looked a little hurt and Jana rushed to explain. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s more than the hair and all that. You’ve got this kind of, I don’t know, inner confidence now.”
Lucy snorted loudly. “I can assure you that is a total act.”
“No,” Jana said quite seriously, “it’s not. The old Lucy would never have strutted her stuff to the reunion.”
“I didn’t ‘strut.’ I almost took out half the waitstaff when I tried that. Mostly I circled the outside of the room, praying I wouldn’t fall off my heels and my boobs would continue to defy gravity and double-sided tape until the stroke of twelve.”
“But in the end, you pulled it off. Just like you pulled off dinner last night. I’m really proud of you.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”
She rubbed Lucy’s shoulder. “I’m serious. You weren’t happy with things the way they were, so you formulated a plan and went after it. I admire that. If I had the first clue how to get over my own problems, I would.”
Lucy’s expression immediately changed to one of concern. “Dave’s still being weird?”
Jana really didn’t want to talk about Dave or anything having to do with her impending motherhood. The mere thought made her want to throw up. Of course, everything made her want to throw up. She looked away, sipped her water. “He feels like he let me down. He’s smothering me with attention. It’s one of the reasons I jumped on your offer to get outside today.”
“Aw, Jana. I’m so sorry. Maybe if I talk to him or something. Make him realize it’s not him.”
Jana made a noise in her throat. It was that or sob. “No, it’s just me. The only happily married woman on the planet not thrilled at the idea of having a child.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Jana sighed. “Yeah. I know. Listen, I’m here to talk about your miserable life, not mine.” She gave Lucy a sidelong smile.
“Maybe we should be talking about you.” Lucy feigned an air of wounded pride. “Unless, of course, you feel I’ve changed so much you can’t trust me.”
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